See https://tx-2.github.io/videos#sketchpad for more video, including appearances by Sutherland himself. https://tx-2.github.io/ is an active effort to get Sketchpad running again on a new TX-2 emulator.
Every design tool today (Figma, Illustrator, CAD) still uses this exact UX pattern. Sutherland nailed it 62 years ago with a light pen and an oscilloscope.
However, going this route for real likely means multi-decade research and iteration.
Demos are quick to make. Generalizing and turning it into real reliable software seems tremendously hard, and beyond just a shift in mindset.
Fortunatelly, we now have vibe coding, so anyone can experience first-hand the frustration of trying to just shift your mindset and immediately reaching a metric ton of limitations in the very first iterations. It's a humbling experience that I recommend to anyone (go ahead and change the world with precision UI, just try it).
That demo is running on the MIT TX-0, a transistorized version of Whirlwind and the predecessor of the PDP-1. It was somewhat obsolete at that point, so projects like this could get time on it.
